


A Storm of Radiance

by Tammany



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Crowley's pov, Eternity in an Hour, Gen, Grooming, Hair, M/M, preening
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-08
Updated: 2019-07-08
Packaged: 2020-06-24 19:08:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19729969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tammany/pseuds/Tammany
Summary: It's a bit about time and timelessness. It's a bit about Aziraphale's hair.It's about more than it seems and a lot less than the buildup might suggest.But I hope at least it's fun, and a bit sexy.





	A Storm of Radiance

Crowley loved Earth for its ephemeral nature. It was the utter opposite of eternity—or, as he tended to declare it, “Eeee-TERN-I-teeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!” complete with body language, hand gestures, and facial contorsions. Eternity was boredom. Constancy piled on constancy, with never even a hope for change. Coupled with God’s failed notion of angels without free will, Crowley had been bored to screaming heebie-jeebies before the Fall.

Indeed, the one thing that made it impossible to quite repent his Fall was that damnation was substantially more interesting, so long as you weren't assigned a spot on the rack or in the pit. Yes, yes—the anguish of being exiled from God’s love bore some weight. But even before he’d been assigned the gig in the Garden, it had been more interesting than doing a bit of backup on star-generation, alternated with singing baritone and playing a bit of harp in the angelic choirs. You can only generate so much interest in eternal celestial harmonies… (Though, to be perfectly fair, he did repeatedly draw on that experience in later attempts to en-evil Earth. Atmospheric music, for example, had been his idea. Also Muzak and praise music.)  
  
Which is a round-about way of saying that Crowley quite liked a bit of change. He loved human innovation! As he said of Earth in its entirety, “If you don’t like the tone of the place, wait a year or two and see if the new version suits. Always something new coming up the turnpike.” The Industrial Revolution? Theoretically that was brought on by God’s saints, geniuses, and science Muses, but Crowely was on the sidelines cheering it on—and working a few entirely subversive Hellish miracles to keep it going. (Thus the accuracy of Blake’s description of dark Satanic Mills: Crowley at work!)

Change. He loved change. He loved the newest music, the latest fads, the freshest ideas. He changed his costumes regularly, as a snake sheds its skin. His hair? In a state of constant flux.

And then there was Aziraphale, angelic counterpart to the diverse and variable Crowley. Aziraphale was steady as a rock. He changed his styles and fashions slowly, cautiously, often pushing the limits on style to the point of standing out from the crowd. He wore a plain Roman toga long after the style had switched over to tunic and hosen. He often stayed in one place too long without altering either styles or physical features, thus running the risk of being burnt at the stake or hanged or pressed under rocks or stoned for various unseemly forms of occult hanky-panky. He had hit on a slightly plump, amiable figure well before the Garden, and had shown no sign of tiring of that faintly Pooh-like form.

And then, Crowley thought, there was his hair.

Aziraphale might go to a barber, but Crowely had seen no sign that the angel had ever permitted any barber, in any era, to touch a single strand of his hair. A shave? Just for the form of the thing? Perhaps. Given Aziraphale’s clean-cut cheeks and chin, it wasn’t like a bit closer shave would change his look in the least. But not the hair. Never the hair…

And the hair, in Crowley’s opinion, was the cherry on the sundae. The bloom on the rose bush. Not to mention the informative screamer headline on the front page above the fold. If you studied Aziraphale’s hair, you learned far more than Aziraphale knew…

Crowley’s fingers itched to play tweaky-fingers in that tousled, untamed solar flare. So pale—a white that suggested the heart of the sun. A crop short enough to imply respectability—which was utterly overturned when you considered the madcap, elf-lock lack of order. It was all cowlick, no slicked-down virtue. Aziraphale invented Byronic tonsorial mayhem millennia before Byron himself was even born. His head was aflame, a flickering, spiked, feral wildfire mocking all Aziraphale’s prim pretenses. And it never changed.

Never. Not over the centuries. In a world that offered thousands of respectable hairstyles for men, Aziraphale kept the one he had chosen from The Beginning. No Assyrian crimped hair and knotted curls. No Minoan curls. No Chinese braids, or Middle Eastern flowing locks. It might be true that in railroading times there were railroads, but as far as Aziraphale was concerned, that type of logic didn’t apply to men’s wigs. Or to queues, or man-buns, or military crops, or tidy short-sides-and-back, long on top with a side-part “professional” cuts. No beard. Never a beard.

Aziraphale never changed it. Never matched it to the times. You could, with effort, convince him to change his waistcoat—or even give it up (or more accurately, Aziraphale would hide it away in some Heavenly wardrobe only to bring it back out a century later, when it was in fashion again…). But the hair didn’t change.

Crowley loved it. He loved it when Aziraphale would look at him with such intense innocence you’d swear he was the most angelic of angels—but his hair was unchanged, shouting out endless rebellion against order.

Crowley admitted it—he himself could not achieve such a cantankerous, tumbled hairstyle—not with washes, gels, demonic miracles, or even the gifts of a skilled barber. The pure, unadulterated chaos of Aziraphale’s hair was inimitable. And it begged to be _touched_ — ** _begged_**. **_Pleaded_**. Whispered evil things to Crowley in the night, murmuring hints of how crisp and silken the texture would be—both smooth and stiff, satiny and yielding. He knew he could rake his fingers through that hair, force it into order, only to watch it spring back into blazing white mayhem the second it was released.

It echoed the more ordered gleam of angel wings. It reminded Crowley of white herringbone clouds proclaiming turbulence in the upper atmosphere.

He loved it—and loved it because it combined disorder with permanence. It existed in some odd stasis, defying Heaven’s order while reveling in Heaven’s eternal security. It promised, silently, that Aziraphale was not so meek and mild as he presented himself as being. That behind the gentle, mild face lurked a mischievous wink and grin; that inside the dapper, if dated outfits and the soft, if graceful form, lurked a bit of a bastard. Just enough of a bastard.

The best, he thought. The best of Heaven and Earth. Of eternity and ephemeral change. Of order and chaos. Or, he thought, smirking, just that touch of sexy yin up the old yang.

He knew he’d Fall someday. He was, after all, a demon. Falling was his nature. Temptation was the unholy water he swam in; the hellfire he bathed in. He’d cross the line someday.

And so it was one day…

They sat in a garden, on a tidy teak bench, admiring sweeping perennial beds, neatly pruned fruit trees, rolling green hills beyond. There was a stream that flowed through the modern British Eden and weeping willows dragging their withies in the current. Apple blossom billowed on the branch, and peonies raved in drunken dishevelment wherever you looked, blushing and perfumed as Aziraphale at a burlesque revue. There were ducks. Aziraphale sat on the bench, prim and neat, his legs *almost* too short for the height, his hands occupied with a well-worn book. Crowley sprawled, boneless and cocky at the other end of the bench, trusting the dark lenses of his glasses to hide his fascination with Aziraphale’s…hands, expression, chattering voice, hair—Aziraphale’s _everything._ The wind fluttered fair white hair, establishing constant change, constant movement, but never order. Never obedience to anything but feral freedom.

“Oh,” said Crowley, voice catching as apple blossom tossed on the wind caught in that tousled, tempting riot. Without even thought, much less resistance, he reached out, long fingers reaching to touch. Perhaps he’d have groomed the petals from Aziraphale’s hair.

Perhaps not.

He didn’t know. Aziraphale’s hand, faster than one suspected, reached up, caught his wrist, and held him still, inches from his goal. He turned his head, and his sky-blue-heaven eyes stared at Crowley.

Eternity, unchanging. Torment unending. Crowley writhed, caught—hand caught, eyes caught, pride caught, longing caught, all of his damned, unforgivable soul laid out bare and vulnerable. Only after long, celestial kalpa did he manage to croak, “Petals. In your hair…”

Something stirred then—something serpentine in the sky-blue. Something bastardly and mischievous in the sweet virtue. Something just a bit demonically yin stirring up the old angelic yang. Aziraphale’s cupid’s bow lips curved up just the tiniest bit.

“Really?” he said, voice quiet, soft velvet. “That will never do. By all means, deal with it.” And Aziraphale gently placed Crowley’s hand on that blazing white brushfire.

It was soft as kittens, crisp as a perfect fresh paintbrush. It was warm with Aziraphale’s body heat, and cool with the spring breeze. The tangled thatch was as disordered as he had dreamed, and as easily navigated—his fingers threaded through with ease, stroking Aziraphale’s scalp and caressing the entire cap into order, before it sprang back from each passing touch. It smelled of feathers and books and high-atmospheric ozone. Of hot tea and cold grapes. Of white wine fresh from the cellar, chill from the cave. Not meaning to, Crowley fisted it tight, then shuddered at the tiny gasp the angel gave in response. His fingers sprang open—only to meet Aziraphale’s eyes and find nothing but affection—and amazement.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered to the angel. “Can’t help it. Demon, me. Sorry-sorry-sorry. ‘S unforgivable.” He started to draw his hand back—only to be checked again by the angel’s firm grip. His hand was returned to Aziraphale’s hair.

His Angel looked at him with eyes as wild and turbulent as his fair, fair hair—as calm and as chaotic. As orderly and as tempestuous. Fear and uncertainty lurked—but were overpowered by something deeper, darker, and less innocent.

“Will you never understand, dear demon? You are forgiven already. For now and for always.”

Crowley shivered. “I’m a right bastard, Angel.”

“And a silly old serpent, too,” Aziraphale said, and his expression melted into pure, simple love. “It’s all right, my dear,” he whispered. “It was quite lovely.” And he leaned back and let his eyes close, as his face radiated contentment—and a pink, charming blush of bashful longing.

Crowley smiled to himself, and stroked again, picking loose apple blossom, scratching lightly, preening, grooming, adoring his Angel. Forgiven. Forever…

Somehow Eternity looked a lot better than it had.


End file.
